Al Librero

Note to readers:This is turning out to be much longer than I had envisioned. I initially thought this was going to be a 3-part blog. But at this rate, it can easily make it to 10 parts. I apologize if it’s getting harder and harder to follow. But I still am keeping track of where…

Right at the beginning, I started to notice how my habits were taking shape. Hmmm… I was going to use the term study habits, but that would be me being too generous to myself.

While it was never my first choice, personal circumstances led me to taking up my PhD in distance mode. Time will tell whether or not this will end up being a good choice. But I would need to make the most out of it. I had thought that my experience as an online teacher would…

I was one of them. Not that I thought it was a smooth ride overall, but I think things started out nicely. Within a few years, I had built enough confidence to start teaching with a bit more authority. But the change in dynamics was significant as I moved from handling graduate to undergraduate students.…

I am one of them. I remember this being my mindset going into UP Open University. With the way the University of the Philippines is structured, there is a separation of faculty from the rest of the staff and the students. I tried to reject that separation early on. I did not want to be…

I was going over discussion forums in the recent courses I had handled. They are typically sparse at UPOU. And what posts there are usually feels stiff. What I mean by that is posts almost always seem forced. It’s rare for them to be written in a conversational manner. It is as if, students’ frame…

It’s tricky for me to compare my time in the Diploma in Computer Science to that of the Bachelor of Arts in Multimedia Studies programme. The student demographic was different. I was also different. Also, while the curriculum and scheduling of DCS was already established, BAMS was still in a state of flux. What did…

I just realized something. I rarely write about my experiences in an online university in detail, at least not outside the context of research or course content. So, I figured that this was as good a time as any to start. My first foray into distance learning happened around 2000. I was a graduate student…